Year 18, Week 23 , Day One (week 960)

Year 18, Week 23  , Day One (week 960)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
06-19-18 Saturday

76 low 85 medium high, good humidity, carefully timed showers to prevent yard sales.  There was a few periods of sun. This weather report is brought to you by the city of Pompano Beach Department of Tourism.

I went on line to get my week count right. When you skip a few weeks of posts, it is easy to get messed up.

Mom needed some wire shelving racks to be cut to size. These are basically flat with a rod backbone on one side. I said, “I will use my dremmel.”  First I had to remember where I hid it so I could use it. I have two dremmel boxes, one with the dremmel I use all the time, then another with all my extra bits and stuff, (along with bamboo rods for making crochet hooks) Then I had to remember where my cutting disks were. They were not in the little cup that holds most of my bits. I realized I had one of those cute little boxes in there with the cutting bits of all kinds. I then had to get the cutting bit on.  Ok, it was time to get work.
I wanted the ends to be snug with the wires going across. The first wire wore the cutting disk down in half. The second wire broke the disk. I struggled to get the screw loose, so I could replace it. I then broke a second cutting disk on that wire. I finally cut through it. I then had two thick wires to cut as part of the backbone. I got through them. I then had to cut to length and I went through two more disks. I figured out that I had a wire cutter and I could “scrunch” the remains of the disk between the holder and the screw, freeing the screw. It worked. I did not have a screw driver fine enough and I was not confident with the knife blade. It was not catching the slot right and I was concerned of a slip and cut. The nipper worked nicely.

The rest of the day was spent relaxing since not too much could be done anyway.


Year 18, Week 23  , Day two (week 960)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
06-20-18 Sunday

76 low 85 high, higher humidity than yesterday, mostly cloudy with clouds moving due North with pop-ups building and disappearing as they move.  This weather report is brought to you by the city of Pompano Beach Department of Tourism.

I mentioned in my last post about a teddy bear dress I was working on in crochet. I had started the top, and was not happy with it, so I ripped it out and did the top over.  I decided this top was good enough. the total dress came out cute. Nearly all my crochet is done away from home, many times while sitting and waiting in the truck for something to open, or at the place waiting for someone to show up. It is not much time each time, but I am getting some results over time. 
Wood working is not doing well this year. My schedule, the weather, and not having the awning to work under, has killed much of what wood working I could accomplish. Considering that we are entering hurricane season, we might not set up the awning even if the frame was repaired. Most of my equipment is still at the neighbor’s house. His place is still being remodeled and my equipment is not in his way at this moment. We will see what happens when he finishes his work. 

I do hope to do a little carving next week. For right now, the air conditioner feels good. 

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This teddy is more a sitting bear. She is wearing the new dress I made.

This shows t he dress a little better, with the straps running over the shoulders.

This is the back of the dress with the single back strap. 

you can see by the size of my hand that this is a TY BEANIE BABY.; 

this one is a model, the dress will likely be on a different bear. 

Year 18, Week 20, Day One (week 960)

Year 18, Week 20, Day One (week 960)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
06-02-18 Saturday

Sunny some clouds 74 degrees early morning 81 mid day 81 late day. Light breeze low humidity. This weather report is brought to you by the City of Pompano Beach Department Of Tourism. 

Sorry I have not posted for a while. things have not been going on that I can report on. 
There were a series of wood working tool yard sales. I still don’t understand how it happened. I went to each one and somehow walked out without buying anything. I mean, the stuff they had was exactly what I would usually scarf up as fast as I could empty my wallet and I left without even a purchase. It helps that the awning in back of my mom’s house is not set up yet, it looks like it will be at least a year before it is setup. Because of that, I have no place to put anything. 
I accidentally missed the wood turning club meeting. They did film the demo by Lee Sky
https://youtu.be/jig-ZCYuKqw 
that you can view on line. It was educational even for me....

We had torrential downpours last month, before and after Albert passed by. I refuse to exaggerate how deep the water was. It was just that one night when I got home, I had to wait for a massive yacht to sail past my driveway on its way back to the ocean before I could pull into my driveway 
My mom’s neighbor’s lawn really loved the rain. We had to run an expedition using porters and guides to cross his jungle-thick lawn. Today, I stopped at a yard sale and found an electric 
(Power cord) lawnmower really cheap. The owner who was selling it had replaced his “lawn” out by the street with shells. I gave the lawn mower to my mom’s neighbor. He used it on the front lawn. The monkeys and tigers moved to the back yard. Environmentalists are fighting to prevent his mowing the back yard because of jungle habitat destruction. He is letting the homeowner’s association fight the environmentalists. The home owner’s association was angry that his yard was “a cut above the rest.”......

There are deals to be had at yard sales if you take your time (sometimes lots of time) to look. There are things I am looking for and have not seen for one or maybe two years. They are usually things that I wish I had gotten when they were available. I learned that if you are after general items, say cook books, or wrenches, or cookware, you will see them fairly quickly and just have to decide if it is exactly what you want. For specific things, you might not see them at all. Or once in a great while. An example, one family had a giant roll of leather they had taken from a couch. I wanted to buy it, but had no place to store it. That was the one and only time I have ever seen that. There is a certain type of insulated pitcher I like. I had found several in quick succession several year ago, and have not seen one available since. I think this is the third electric lawn mower I have seen in the past year or so. 
At times, when yard sailing, it comes down to “kick myself” decisions. You will kick yourself if you buy it, as you have to store it and it might not be useable for a while,  but you will kick yourself if you don’t buy it as you might not see it again. I think some products go through trends, people buy something that is popular and later unload it because it is either not what they want or they don’t need it any more. I see that often in products I have no interest in. 



Most of last month was not good for yard sales. Rain messes things up and we went weeks without a dry period.
[edit, the Fort Lauderdale Department of Tourism forbids the use of the word “Rain” in any description in this area. The official term is “Liquid Sunshine.”.]
The last few days is the first dry days we have had in a long time. People were panicking when the sun came out. They did not know what it was.
(There was an actual billboard along the highway in the Seattle area back in the 1980s that said “DON’T PANIC. IT IS ONLY THE SUN”.) If the early week weather report says that the weekend is good weather, a lot of people have yard sales. When you do not know if there will be good weather until the night before or the morning of, not many people will plan to take the chance.

A couple months back, trenching work done in the neighbor’s yard allowed me to get my hands on a couple pieces of Mango root. I carved three pixies from the really green wood. Sap was coming from the ends. A couple weeks ago, I grabbed a piece of now dried Mango root and carved another pixy from it. It is not a wood that holds detail as it will split easily. I lost a nose and had to go deeper. It is better carving than Balsa wood but is not a strong wood. The dried piece I carved came out slightly darker than the first ones I carved. I really need to touch up all of these the best I can and then use paint to add details. 

The way I usually color my carvings, is that I let the wood be the skin tone and just paint everything else. I feel that if you are going to do something in wood, you might as well show some of it. I remember my dad buying flesh colored paint. No wood showed from his work. Of course, a number of things I do is a reaction to what my dad did. My dad did a series of cowboys and their arms were straight down their sides and their legs were straight. I tend to bend knees and have the arms in front of them or something else as long as it is not straight. Yes, he was copying a popular style, but from the very beginning, I veered away from straight figurines. My forth carving was of a person kneeling. All of the fairies I have carved, which would be about six inches tall if standing, are never standing, but crouching, lounging or otherwise “folded up”. With these figurines, I am leaving a block of the raw wood they are standing on. 

I have done minor crochet. I finished a dress for a teddy bear and have a good start on another. The one I finished, I started with ten single crochet, then increased the size of the stitch as I went to the hem, then reversed it. The other one, I created a skirt going around, each with a wider stitch and many “increases” as I went around. The problem is that the skirt came out fairly flat. I am trying to figure out how to fix that. I did start the top witch is straps, but I am not happy with that. Projects like these dresses are quick, easy, and people I show them to, like them. 

I will have to see what I do next weekend. I do hope to carve on something.

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back side of dress on teddy bear

front side of dress son teddy bear

my mango root men the three on the left were carved while the wood was wet. the one on the right was carved after the stick had completely dried.